This ballad was entered in the Stationers' Register in 1624. The title is alternatively spelled Chevy Chace. The ballad is generally thought to describe the Battle of Otterburn. Some of the verses correspond to the that battle, but not all. The Battle of Otterburn took place in 1388. At that Battle Henry Percy (Hotspur) was captured, not killed. He was killed in 1403 in an uprising against Henry IV.

According to Child another possibility is the border warfare between a Percy and a Douglas in 1435 or 1436. Henry Percy of Northumberland made a raid into Scotland with 4,000 men. He was met by William Douglas, Earl of Angus at Piperden. There were great losses on each side, but the Scots prevailed.

This ballad is a variant of Child Ballad #162 (The Hunting of the Cheviot).

The Hunting of the Cheviot was old and popular as early as the middle of the sixteenth century. It appears in The Complaynt of Scotland (1549). On one published copy of the ballad Rychard Sheale, who described himself as a minstrel living at Tamworth, claims to have written the ballad. Child finds his claim "preposterous in the extreme."

Versions of the ballad were printed repeatedly on broadsides throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was said to be the favorite ballad of the common people. The tune was also used for numerous other ballads.

A footnote of interest: Ben Johnson is quoted as saying he would rather have been the author of Chevy Chase than all of his works.

Except for the last verse, these lyrics are from Digital Tradition. They are from Songs of Northern England by Stokoe. They include only 33 verses. There are 63 verses in Child's version, and One Hundred Songs of England says there are 68. I have added the last verse from Songs of England (which is the same as Child's except for spelling) to these lyrics.

God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safeties all!
A woeful hunting once there did
In Chevy Chase befall.

To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Percy took his way;
The child may rue that is unborn
The hunting of that day!

The stout Earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summer's days to take.

The chiefest harts in Chevy Chase
To kill and bear away.
These tidings to Earl Douglas came,
In Scotland where he lay:

Who sent Earl Percy present word
He would prevent his sport.
The English Earl, not fearing that,
Did to the woods resort,

With fifteen hundred bowmen bold,
All chosen men of might,
Who knew full well in time of need
To aim their shafts aright.

The gallant greyhounds swiftly ran
To chase the fallow deer:
On Monday they began to hunt
Ere daylight did appear;

And long before high noon they had
An hundred fat bucks slain:
Then having dined, the drivers went
To rouse the deer again.

Lord Percy to the quarry went
To view the slaughter'd deer;
Quoth he, Earl Douglas promised
This day to meet me here;

But if I thought he would not come
No longer would I stay
With that a brave young gentleman
Thus to the Earl did say: